Cocofina Ltd: A Case Study of a Small Business Enterprise in the Dragon's Den Series

This report examines Cocofina Ltd, a coconut-based product company featured on the Dragon's Den series. It analyzes the company's strengths and weaknesses, compares its performance to a competitor, and recommends strategies for overcoming weaknesses, maintaining performance, and expanding the business. The report also assesses existing business objectives and plans, suggests areas for improvement, and outlines an action plan for implementing changes. Finally, it analyzes the impact of proposed changes on the business and personnel, outlines a plan for managing those changes, and evaluates the company's performance over the past two years.

SMALL BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE
1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Produce a profile of your selected business from the Dragons Den series.......................2
1.2. Compare the performance of your selected business with one of the following..................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Recommend with justification, appropriate actions to overcome the weaknesses................5
2.2 Analyze ways in which the existing performance could be maintained and strengthened....7
2.3 Suggest new areas in which the business could expand with reasonable justification..........9
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Assessment on existing business objectives and plans........................................................10
3.2. Review business plans and suggest areas where changes can be made..............................12
3.3 Prepare an action plan to implement the changes................................................................13
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................15
4.1 Impact on the proposed changes on the business and personnel.........................................15
4.2 plan for how changes can be managed in business..............................................................16
4.3 The improvements in the performance of the business over the past two years.................17
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21
2

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Weaknesses of Cocofina..................................................................................................6
Figure 2: Turnover of last two years..............................................................................................18
Figure 3: Profits of last two years..................................................................................................18
3

INTRODUCTION
Small Business Enterprise relies on various business management strategies for its growth and
development. The report therefore considers Cocofina ltd as SBE which specializes in providing
coconut based products. It operates through large number of healthy and speciality outlets in UK
across different countries in the world.
Report helps in identifying the strength and weaknesses of Cocofina. In this report, its
performance is compared with other organization with similar industry. Various strategies are
identified to overcome the weaknesses and ways are analysed to maintain its performance.
Report also focuses on development of strategies to expand the business of Cocofina. Business
plans are developed in the report to implement the changes in businesses for its growth. Report
Analyse the impacts of changes on business and lastly various recordings of data is evaluated for
measuring the performance of business in past years.
1

TASK 1
1.1 Produce a profile of your selected business from the Dragons Den series
The Name of the business
The current task and report will focus on detailed study of Cocofina Ltd from Dragon Den
Series.
Owner Structure
Cocofina is a single owner structure organization which was founded by Jacob Thundil. It
operates as a leader in food industry and provides product related to coconut. After the
establishment of business, Jacob started working with Nick Jenkins and Sarah Willingham
(Anonymous, 2017).
History/ Background
Cocofina was founded in 2005 and accepted an offer jointly with Nick Jenkins and Sarah
Willingham of approx £75,000 for equity of 20%. Jacob Thundil after 11 years makes a
partnership with Manisha Solanki to complete the investment of £75,000 as well as to enter the
Dragon’s Business (Amy, 2016).
It’s Activity
Cocofina Ltd relates to the food industry specialising in providing coconut based food products
such as coconut water, ingredients related to baking, coconut snacks and many more. The brand
Cocofina displays its products in various retail outlets across the UK. For increasing the sales of
an organization, it also focuses on featuring the festive gift boxes and marketing strategies are
developed to sell its products worldwide. It also various other products such as flour, nectar,
milk, snack bars and many other variety of products.
Business Location
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Cocofina Ltd is headquartered in London with various locations across the world. Cocofina sell
its products in approximately 3000 outlets in UK and other stores in 28 countries across the
world (
Julai, 2017). It is currently focusing on expanding its business in Thailand and is launching its
products on QVC.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Strength of Cocofina ltd is that it offers healthy and quality of products and services to its
customers. It enhances its brand by providing coconut products with no hidden additives,
preservatives, and additives. It also offers its products through various online sources.
Cocofina is weak somewhere in marketing of its products and therefore, people are less aware of
the brand in UK market.
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1.2. Compare the performance of your selected business with one of the following
Comparison between Cocofina Ltd and The Coconut Company
Cocofina offers quality of coconut based products such as gluten free coconut flour, soya free
amino, butter, creamed coconut, toasted chips and many more. The Coconut Company on other
side provides products ranging from coconut oil, coconut nectar, fermented vinegars, etc.
Both the organizations can be compared on the basis of various elements such as:
Production: Both the organizations focus on providing healthy and organic coconut based
products. The Coconut Company ensures the production goes through minimum of processing
steps which helps in providing essential contents of coconut to its customers and on the other
hand Cocofina focus on providing low calories products which are approved by UK Soil
Association of UK.
Marketing: The Coconut Company relies on retailers and distributors to market its products to
large number o customers (Chaston, 2014). It has its marketing offices in Hong Kong, UK and
USA. Cocofina focus on website marketing, emails and newsletters to promote its products. The
biggest weakness of Cocofina is that it lacks in online marketing which is the basic need in the
era of globalization.
Human Resources: HR managers and executives of The Coconut Company are responsible for
supporting the core values of an organization and on the other side Cocofina focuses on HR
Policies for utilization of resources and also for staffing and recruiting of employees.
Use of Technology: Cocofina implements various advancement in technologies for keeping the
products fresh for a longer time period. It uses nitrogen in oils for avoiding oxidation of coconut
oil. It also focuses on implementing the technologies which helps in reducing the bacterial and
fungal attacks on its products. On the hand The Coconut Company implements technology to
assure that valuable nutrients of raw coconut are maintained along with the flavours and taste. It
uses technology to maintain the quality of the product.
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TASK 2
2.1 Recommend with justification, appropriate actions to overcome the weaknesses.
Cocofina is expanding its business at high rate by developing various strategies for effective
running of its business but still it faces various hindrances in the competitive market related to
food industry. There exists large number of competitors in the market who provides various
types of coconut products of superior quality. Therefore, Cocofina must focus on overcome the
shortcomings by implementing the appropriate actions which are explained below:
Lack of marketing
Cocofina lacks in marketing its products to large number of customers because of its weak online
presence. It mostly focuses on marketing of its products through its own website. It utilises
personal data of customers and send emails and newsletters to consumers to make aware of new
products launched by an organization. But in the era of globalization, most of the consumers
search for products and its details on social media platforms. Therefore, Cocofina must focus on
online marketing techniques to make aware of its brand on large scale.
Limited Workforce
Cocofina lacks in gaining goals and objectives in the business environment due to less number of
employees and resources (Burns, 2016). The current employee strength is less than 50
employees. It becomes more challenging for an organization to meet the demands of customers
on time because of less availability of resources. The production facilities also suffer a lot due to
limited workforces. Resource limitation also reduces the efficiency of performance as well as
quality of products and services also get affected. Therefore, to generate the output according to
the expectations, it is important for Cocofina to hire more number of employees in an
organization.
Perception about Brand Image
Cocofina sometimes is in state of overconfidence about its brand image which proves to be its
weakness and results into failure in achieving business targets. Dragon Den is a big brand name
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and operating business under such a brand makes owners of Cocofina sometimes overconfident
which fails to develop efficient strategies for scaling up the businesses. Owners of the
organization are unaware of the competition in the market and therefore to overcome this
weakness it is important to maintain healthy relationship with other organizations in the market.
Figure 1: Weaknesses of Cocofina
6

2.2 Analyze ways in which the existing performance could be maintained and strengthened.
Cocofina must implement various measures to improve and maintain the efficiency of its
performance such as:
Adapting the changes
Cocofina must focus on developing various strategies to gain the competitive advantage in the
market. It is important for an organization to adapt changes according to the current market trend
and the needs of customers. Consumers are more into social media now days therefore; Cocofina
must focus on digital and social media marketing to increase the reach of its customers. Various
mobile applications must be utilized for buying and selling of products.
Competitors Strategies: Cocofina must focus on various strategies of competitors so that
various decisions related to businesses can be improved. It can add more products with different
variants to stand ahead in the market as compared to its competitors. Cocofina must focus on
adding uniqueness and differentiation in their products (Nguyen, 2017).
Various measures can be implemented to strengthen the above mentioned factors such as:
Customer relationship
Cocofina must conduct market research to identify the needs of customers on regular basis. It
must focus on taking feedbacks and reviews about its products so that various strategies can be
implemented to improve the quality of products. Customers are the main stakeholders for the
businesses and therefore it is most important to maintain the healthy customer relationship.
Training Programs
Goals and objectives are dependent on employees’ performance and therefore Cocofina must
focus on organizing training programs for employees. Training sessions helps to enhance the
skills and abilities of its employees which help to accomplish the objectives of an organization.
Training must focuses on strengths and weaknesses of the employee.
Utilization of Workforce
7

Current workforce of Cocofina is less as compared to the demand of consumers (Case, 2017).
This affects the performance of employees and quality of products as well. Therefore, an
organization must focus on hiring more number of employees so that Cocofina meets the need of
customers on time.
8

2.3 Suggest new areas in which the business could expand with reasonable justification
In the world of globalisation, it is important to expand the business into new areas. Therefore, it
is important to identify the new areas in which the business can grow and various steps must be
taken by the organization for the expansion of business. Below are some suggestions:
 Cocofina must focus on expanding the business by increasing the retail outlets
worldwide. Opening of retail stores will help to attract more number of customers (Saeidi
et.a.2015). This will also make aware the customers about its new products and services.
 Cocofina can also expand the business by adding more variety of products to its product
line. This can be done by observing the competitors product line which would help
Cocofina to gain competitive advantage. Maximizing the product portfolio helps to
maximise the interest of customers as well as business opportunities.
 New facilities such as online availability of products also help to increase the customer
base (Armstrong et.al.2015). Reducing the prices for the time being increases the sales of
an organization and attracts more number of customers because customers are more into
getting the quality of services at affordable prices.
 Feedbacks from customers and development of strategies according to those feedbacks
help in expanding the business of Cocofina. Cocofina must create a separate section on
its website so that customers can send their feedback without standing in a queue at retail
stores. Feedback forms are best option to facilitate the customers for putting the queries.
High level of customer service helps to expand the business.
 Sending of emails and newsletters more frequently helps customers to know about the
new products and services (Sahni et.al.2018). It helps to increase the interest of customers
and sales of the product increases. Therefore, Cocofina must implement various
promotional and communication techniques to make aware of its products to consumers.
9

TASK 3
3.1 Assessment on existing business objectives and plans
The organisation is the coconut experts with the wide range of organic, innovative, vegetarian
and vegan friendly products that are approved by UK soil association and offered across the UK
along with 28 countries. The brand core values of the Cocofina is consistent production of high
quality based coconut products. Thus the product is heavily stocked in the stores worldwide. The
organisation objective is to have more business expansion with strong recognition in UK and rest
of the world. The main mission of the organisation is as follows:-
 To grow organically and move deeper into the existing market operations (Storey, 2016).
 Application of enhanced technology to explore the business along with the brand value
 Internal structure and organisation culture is to be maintained among the employees
Current performance with objectives
To remain competitive and maintaining sustainability in the market Cocofina management has
formulated the objectives as per the current performance:
 Long term customer retention
 Maintaining the high quality based coconut products
 To face the challenges of relinquishing the part of the work
 Raising the employee’s number and performance so that more profits and revenue can be
earned
Changed business objectives
By Dragon Den series the organisation highly receives the positive image and the business is
majorly concern with the product quality and business expansion (Hillary, 2017). With the
increase in competition the business is managing and is planning to enhance the sales with
operating sales. It concentrates on retention of customers by offering service quality.
Impact of changes
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The optimisation of resources will be resulted with the change in Cocofina objectives. Business
can raise their performance by proper supervision of financial management system with the
application of useful strategies. Business required being more concentrate on few points along
with key areas from the customer feedbacks. The management needs to identify the trend by
targeting the specific type of segment.
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3.2. Review business plans and suggest areas where changes can be made
According to the plans of Cocofina Ltd business because of which changes needs to be
implemented in new areas that are explained below:-
 As the organisation is not so old, it includes only seven full time employees but at the
same time increase in competition is also high. Therefore, owner’s has to focus on
employees performance related to efforts in the business (Ellett et.al.2017). Marketing
plans also required to be improved by determining the communication trends through
marketing.
 More skilled and professional employees are to be appointed to achieve the wants and
desire of the customers. The demands are generated by marketing department but
expectations are supposed to be met by production department for the coconut based
goods.
 Cocofina Ltd also required formulating the business plans by applying the online
platform for promotions, advertisements etc via installing mobile apps and using more
social media platform (Bosomworth, 2015).
 Change in operational management activities by using the business plans for activities
that support in monitoring and controlling the employees and managers performances.
 Cocofina Ltd needs to provide the training to the employees so that immediate actions
can be taken which are faced by the customers during or after the purchase. For this
purpose, experts must be invited for the employees to have in detail training on the issues
faced by the customers. In this part, the role of customer feedback is very important to
bring effective change.
 Cocofina Ltd business managers as per the plan also decide that the financial
discrepancies will be met only through private equity or venture capital and not from
financial institutions such as bank loans etc.
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3.3 Prepare an action plan to implement the changes
Set the goals and objectives
Cocofina aim is to be the humble and honest from the beginning by offering the healthy and
yummy coconut goods all around the world. Thus, its brand and objective inbuilt and reflects
honesty, health and quality products. The products are produced from real coconut with no added
preservatives, ingredients etc. Business expansion and customer support is also another objective
of Cocofina by using social media marketing technique more.
Relevant actions to perform
Set the quality, health and fairness standard for management and employees on the basis of
industry standards. For instance: Cocofina can use total quality management system and health
management tools and equipment at the factory areas for the workers and employers along with
the products produced as well (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
The research must be planned using the various sources to determine the customer expectations
and market trends. In this context, marketing manager is to be responsible for the same as the
organisation needs to improve its advertisement more in comparison with focussing only on
newsletter, emails etc. For example: The social media will surely offer some of the useful
recommendations to the organisation for meeting the objectives.
Set timeline
The goals and objectives can be met by conducting the consistent interval around quarterly
period and in every quarter the actions will be managed and execute the changes annually.
Review and monitor the plan
The plan progress is needed to be carried out by the Cocofina and its management so as to
manage and review the regular tasks and activities. For this thing the management has to carry
out the official meeting for assessing the progress of the plan. Performance review for the
employees and quality of the product is to be done so as to calculate the time taken for finishing
the activities along with revenue and market share. Under the case of conflicts, the team of
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management and employees is accountable to begin the action plan by executing the changes
needed especially in marketing ways.
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TASK 4
4.1 Impact on the proposed changes on the business and personnel
Amendment can be outlined for the Cocofina that will have positive impact on the business
performance in terms of every aspect such as sales, quality or business revenue. The employee’s
capabilities and business performance will also be improved with the evaluation of positive
changes. For instance: Cocofina has few of the very clear plans for communicating with the
customers using direct mails and social media for dealing the issues and complaints regarding
anything related to the products or services. This will support in improving the product quality
and performance so that long term customer retention is being achieved (Harmon, 2015).
Furthermore, Cocofina can also determine the correct management for functional and operational
tasks that results into generating useful coconut goodies production from different department in
the organisations.
To manage the quality at foremost, organisation needs to bring the changes in the business
procedure such as total quality system can be deployed in the production unit so that regular
quality checks can be maintained. For executing this owners or management has to take the
useful communication approaches among all the team members (Tan, 2015). This will also
support in creating the good relationship among the team as well. The personnel can also raise
their performances with the changes but it are to be critically reviewed those big changes can
prove negatively as well on the employee’s performances as they cannot easily adapt it.
Moreover, clear and crucial plans are to be formulated by the managers so that they can simply
reach to set goals and objectives. These are the impacts and influences that are suggested in the
proposed plans and objectives.
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4.2 plan for how changes can be managed in business
 In the first stage, Cocofina will determine the wants and desire of every stakeholder that
will surely bring the changes in the processes and plans.
 The meetings are also required to be supervised with the stakeholders related to the
desires and the discussion can be carried out on some of the major suggestions so as to
execute the changes in Cocofina.
 Training and development is the part of every business and the most possible changes can
only be managed through training and development only so that employees can match
with the challenges they face during their jobs and operations (Ford, 2014). Hence, it
support in personal development as well as in meeting the customer requirements and
satisfaction.
 Social media advertising channel also supports in managing the changes as it is very easy
to use and efforts of the employees are also reduced with directly receiving the feedback
and responses of the client.
 Cocofina also use the efforts for supervising the changes in the business that means they
are using the most effective process. The changes managed can also relate to style,
organisational culture, key skills and strategic plans and systems.
Thus, each factor is important and effective for the Cocofina from which they can increase their
business at big scale. These factors will also support the organisation to execute and use the
changes carried out for correct management and growth desire in the industry. These strategies
will also be applied by the organisation to carry out the changes in current business operations.
Above plan is regarded in supervising the execution related to the changes in Cocofina.
Managers of the organisation have crucial role in executing the plan and the executive manager
of the organisation carry out the activity and following that the useful strategies can be
developed to overcome the problems that are seen in plan implementation. A project manager
who is hired to create the plan for executing the changes that are given by the organisation
require to carry out the planning, formulating, executing and monitoring features that relates to
management of change (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).
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4.3 The improvements in the performance of the business over the past two years
Investments done by Cocofina Ltd
The organisation is only seven years old i.e. its incorporation date as company is 27th August
2010. The organisation is the private limited with share capital and is recognised as the coconut
experts. Cocofina biggest achievement is when filming took place of their business for the 14th
series of BBC Two’s Dragon Den. Jacob Thundil is the entrepreneur who is the coconut expert
and the founder of organic food brand Cocofina. This individual brought the real coconut flavour
in the foodies. The organisation currently export sales is 45% and rest 55% is in UK (Michelle,
2016). In 2016-2017 and 2015-2016, the net asset, net worth, total liabilities is as follows:
Table 1: Comparison of last two years in terms of net asset, liabilities and assets
Particular Amount (2016-2017) Amount (2015-2016)
Net assets £72.1k (decreased) £75.2k
Total liabilities £-298.05k (decreased) £-296.27k
Total assets £370.15k (decreased) £371.55k
Comparison of profit and turnover for the year 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 are as follows:-
Table 2: Comparison of profit and turnover for last two years
Particular Amount (2016-2017) Amount (2015-2016)
Sales or turnover £1million £0.6 million
Profits £70k £50k
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Sales
£-
£0.20
£0.40
£0.60
£0.80
£1.00
£1.20
amount (2016-17)
Amount (2015-16)
Figure 2: Turnover of last two years
amount (2016-17) Amount (2015-16)
£-
£10,000.00
£20,000.00
£30,000.00
£40,000.00
£50,000.00
£60,000.00
£70,000.00
£80,000.00
Profit
Profit
Figure 3: Profits of last two years
From the above analysis, it can be analysed that Cocofina is in good financial condition as it
support in bringing the positive image for the organisation. The reason for this is that
organisation profit as well as turnover is raised from 2016 to 2017 along with that liabilities are
also reduced. Although the net asset has been lowered down from the last year, the reason can be
that Cocofina might have sold its few assets which are not in use or life of the asset is finished.
There can be other several reasons as well for reduction in assets value but the good indication is
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that its profits are rising from both exports and within UK as well. So the use of good quality and
honesty support the Cocofina to have positive growth in the sales and revenue of their business.
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CONCLUSION
By studying the report it can be concluded that business management is essential for the growth
of small business enterprises. For the growth of Cocofina, it is important for management to
identify the business goals and objectives and then take various steps to accomplish those goals.
Various weaknesses are to be identified and then essential steps are taken to overcome those
weaknesses which act as hindrances in the growth of organization. Identification of weaknesses
helps to increase profitability level and helps to grow the organization in positive way. Brand
image also plays an important role in running the business in an efficient manner and therefore,
Cocofina have an advantage as it runs its business under the brand Dragon Den which helps it to
build strong brand name in the market.
It can also be concluded that expansion of business is also important for small business
enterprises like Cocofina Ltd. Therefore, various strategies for expanding the business into new
areas are identified. These strategies must be implemented by organization for gaining the
competitive advantage in the market.
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